When her grandchildren would whine with words resembling 'I'm hungry', my Oma would tenderly correct us with 'No, you feel like eating' which to me seemed be the same thing. Oma had survived Amsterdam during WW1 and truly knew what hunger was. It is ...
If you knew your potential to feel good, you would ask no one to be different so that you can feel good. You would free yourself of all of that cumbersome impossibility of needing to control the world, or control your mate, or control your child. You...
If the ordinary wage-earner worked four hours a day, there would be enough for everybody and no unemployment -- assuming a certain very moderate amount of sensible organization. This idea shocks the well-to-do, because they are convinced that the poo...
He was a precocious and delicate little boy, quivering with the malaise of being unloved. When we played, his child's heart would come into its own, and the troubled world where his vague hungers went unfed and mothers and fathers were dim and far aw...
The Pope would have an easier job than the President of the United States in adopting a change of course. He has no Congress alongside him as a legislative body nor a Supreme Court as a judiciary. He is absolute head of government, legislator and sup...
I bargained with Life for a penny, And Life would pay no more, However I begged at evening When I counted my scanty store; For Life is just an employer, He gives you what you ask, But once you have set the wages, Why, you must bear the task. I worked...
Concha would cry when she found out I was dead, she should have no taste for life for months afterward. But I was still the one who was going to die. I thought of her soft, beautiful eyes. when she looked at me something passed her to me. But I knew ...
Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of scientific verity. On the contrary. The keener and the clearer is the reason, the b...
We all love after-the-bomb stories. If we didn't, why would there be so many of them? There's something attractive about all those people being gone, about wandering in a depopulated world, scrounging cans of Campbell's pork and beans, defending one'...
After I had been studying with him for two years, Schoenberg said, "In order to write music, you must have a feeling for harmony." I explained to him that I had no feeling for harmony. He then said that I would always encounter an obstacle, that it w...
I bet if you look at the average teenager and the average adult, the average teenager has read more books in the last year than the average adult. Now of course the adult would be all like, 'I'm busy, I got a job, I got stuff to do.' WHATEVER! READ! ...
I think unconsciously I was afraid that if she asked me how I felt, my unleashed grief and rage would kill us all. In some unadmitted corner of myself I was already weeping and screaming and begging her not to leave me, not to go. If I started crying...
Is it possible that our world still knows better how to deal with a bandit, a murderer, and insurrectionist than it knows what to do with the Prince of Peace? There is a sense in which an assassin's attempt on the pope's life is less shocking to our ...
Ace Rothstein: [voice-over] And what happens next? I can't believe it. Who the hell would believe that the FBI had a wire in the place looking for some information about some old homicide about some guy who was whacked out God knows when over God kno...
Mr. Parker: [unveiling his major award] Would you look at that? Would you look at THAT? Mother: What is it? Mr. Parker: It's a leg! Mother: But what is it? Mr. Parker: Well, it's... A leg, you know, like a statue. Mother: Statue? Mr. Parker: Yeah, st...
Narrator: You're making a big mistake, fellas! Police Officer: You said you would say that. Narrator: I'm not Tyler Durden! Police Officer: You told us you'd say that, too. Narrator: All right then, I'm Tyler Durden. Listen to me, I'm giving you a di...
Mr. Braddock: Ben, what are you doing? Benjamin: Well, I would say that I'm just drifting. Here in the pool. Mr. Braddock: Why? Benjamin: Well, it's very comfortable just to drift here. Mr. Braddock: Have you thought about graduate school? Benjamin: ...
Mark: Silent velcro. You lucky mother fucker. Andrew Largeman: I feel like if I would shown up at school and presented the idea of silent velcro they would have sent me away a whole lot sooner. Sam: Why did they send you away? Jesse: Ooh, listen to t...
Psychiatrist: Tell me, Harold, how many of these, eh, *suicides* have you performed? Harold: An accurate number would be difficult to gauge. Psychiatrist: Well, just give me a rough estimate. Harold: A rough estimate? I'd say [savoring the thought] H...
Mickey: A week ago I bought a rifle, I went to the store - I bought a rifle! I was gonna, you know, if they told me I had a tumor, I was gonna kill myself. The only thing that might-ve stopped me - MIGHT'VE - is that my parents would be devastated. I...
Pa Bailey: Of course it's just a hope, you wouldn't consider coming back to the Building & Loan would you? George Bailey: Well I... [notices Annie eavesdropping] George Bailey: Annie, why don't you draw up a chair and then you'll be more comfortable ...
